Matter of Facts: Olin (then) vs. Garcelon (now) time-lapse movies

In the 1980s, lecturer Gene Clough famously created a time-lapse film of Olin Arts Center’s construction. Last fall, the Digital Media Studios created a time-lapse of Garcelon’s renovation.

Back then, the setup featured an electric device that wound the film camera and pushed its single frame button — while the modern setup featured a digital camera hooked to an iMac with software controlling nearly everything. But if the two tool sets were quite different, says Colin Kelley of the Digital Media Studios, “at their mechanical hearts they were doing the same thing — one with film, the other with a hard drive.”